Forty, John; (2022) Neither sculpture nor decoration. In: Chojnowska, Karolina, (ed.) Nivola: Sandscapes. (pp. 22-35). Magazzino Italian Art Foundation: Cold Spring, New York, USA.

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Abstract

In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a short-lived fashion for large-scale concrete sculptural reliefs attached to buildings that were, more often than not, also made of concrete. These reliefs are to be found all over the place, and many have survived from the Soviet controlled countries of Eastern Europe, from Western Europe, and from the United States. Although many of the reliefs now look rather humdrum to our eyes, and today are often overlooked, at the time they received a lot of attention, and a surprising amount of effort went into their creation. Just why artists, architects and clients alike, in a variety of political and cultural situations, should have been so invested with this particular treatment for the surfaces of buildings is worth considering (Fig. 1).

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